


Heir

by Ishti



Category: Aveyond
Genre: Canon Compliant, POV Second Person, Present Tense, tokophobia, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:28:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25845853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishti/pseuds/Ishti
Summary: Rhen vs royal duties. Content warnings in notes.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	Heir

**Author's Note:**

> This is a vent fic. I've projected this particular anxiety onto Rhen since I was twelve. Thought about making it into a dialogue, but this is a very, very lonely problem.
> 
> Content warning for underage drinking, pregnancy, mention of sexual coercion, and vomiting.

There are nights when someone plucks the moon from the overstuffed sky to leave a hole the size of a thumbprint and the truth comes spilling out, forceful and cold. So much is left unsaid, these nights, that when it's said, the pressure bursts through the dam of darkness and floods the earth below. There are nights when not a minute passes between your last drink, cackling over innuendo with your closest friends by the tavern's lamplight, and a scraped knee, stumbling to the bottom of a coarse-grained dune, a lump the size of a boot blocking your ragged breath as you sprint clumsily away from the human noise behind you. Your legs are weak as you push through the heavy, swirling air; you've run faster in dreams. No matter how long your stride, you can't escape what's now been said.

You are a princess. By divine right, you have inescapable duties and responsibilities to sustain your nation and your family's reign. Isn't the point of a monarchy to ensure that each successive heir is trained from birth in the science of governance? you've often asked yourself, but it doesn't seem so; there's just something about you that makes _you_ superior to, for instance, the steward, whose leadership has kept a starving country afloat for over a decade. At any rate, there's nothing you can do about it. If it isn't your place to rule a country, then surely it can't be your place to dissolve its tradition. Surely it isn't your place to decide that the line ends with you. You're running to nowhere, but you know where you'll end up.

Thick sea air drowns you, and you can't maintain your pace any longer. The heaving gasps make way for sobs, unfettered, undignified, as you slow. Your steel-clad feet drag in the sand. You are dehydrated from the alcohol and the running and the crying, so the world spins until there are as many stars in the sky as there are grains of sand, and you collapse. The ground stings your scraped knee.

Whose princess is this?

It was a joke, just a stupid joke John shouldn't have made about your _duties,_ your _future_ on the throne and the expectations they'll have of you and your biological clock, but of course he said it in so many words and the implication was more than enough to send you reeling back, knocking over your barstool in your haste to flee. It was a stupid joke but it is a stupid system and a stupid, stupid expectation, and it's not optional--no monarch can ascend to the throne without a breeding mate.

A shudder rips through your body and you heave, a tempestuous cocktail of grog and salt boiling in your throat. It splatters like wet sand on dry, hotly dripping down your chin, mingling with the snot streaming from your regal nose. Your mind is full of static; you bawl as you retch, sound and substance wed in chaos. You choke and cough and gag and cry, louder than the screaming frogs in the jungle behind you.

Exhaustion comes on as quickly as the panic. You moan at the pain in your empty stomach and curl into yourself, ignoring the mess on your face and in your loose hair. The dizziness subsides, and you remember why you're out here, so you sob again, but you're too tired to keep on howling. Tears come quietly as your body shakes in the sand. Again and again, you think of the fate prescribed for you, and again and again panic shocks you senseless.

You never wanted this, even when you were just a simple village girl. You never wanted this when you thought you were in love. You never wanted this before you were told you'd have to do it, and now, it's not so easy to stave off the fear, now that it isn't a choice you get to make. When you're a queen, you belong to the country. Your body belongs to the country.

In fear, it's always been easy to default to the daydream, to conjure up a compromise in your mind so that any situation is resolved without you getting hurt. It's the easy way to cope. Now, you can't do it no matter how hard you try. Maybe you would introduce an elective form of government, or maybe you could secretly adopt an orphan and raise her as your own daughter--but nothing you think of seems realistic. Resolution feels like fantasy. You could never damn another child to the bedchamber, anyway.

You're quiet now as the waves lap a few feet away. You wipe the vomit and the mucus from your face as best you can, then reach your hand out when the tide comes close and swish off the muck in the shallow water. It still feels a mess, so maybe later, when you have the strength and will to stand, you'll wade out over your head and wash it all away.

For now, you roll onto your back and let the despair pass on its own. With a morbid, impassive curiosity, you rest your hand on your belly and shut your eyes, trying to feel the organs within. It was cruel to be born in a body containing the object of your worst horrors; you live in a nightmare even if you do everything in your power to prevent the explosive inside you from detonating. You could easily forget it was there, but it feels the need to remind you every month in a grisly, excruciating way. You swipe a finger over your belly button, contemplating that you, too, were a parasite once.

The waxing moon gleams far overhead, nestled in the shadow of an encroaching cloud. In the tear-smudged darkness, it seems selfish to worry over a simple act of reproduction when a demon lord threatens all of existence. You can tell yourself this, and maybe, for a little while, you'll believe it, but you know that, once the head is severed and the souls locked away in the Oracle's eternal toybox, you'll have one less excuse. Maybe it's better to learn to repress. If one offhand comment from a friend sends you plummeting into hysteria, you're not reliable enough to save the world or to rule a kingdom.

You sit up and tuck your knees into your chest, blinking until you can see the stars again. Someone is crashing through the undergrowth behind you, readying words like weapons to fight off your fears. They won't understand, but at least these few will try.


End file.
